Internet column

Citation

O’Beirne, R. (2005), "Internet column", Reference Reviews, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/rr.2005.09919bag.001

Internet column

It is useful to take stock and reflect on the impact electronic resources have had on the provision of reference and enquiry services. Most notably, the delivery of services based on the use of electronic resources has changed the way all of us now do our jobs and manage within our organization. Whether one views electronic service delivery in isolation or sees it as a stage within the whole library management process, the supply and selection stage, also known as procurement, is the natural predecessor. One interesting observation I would make here is that over the past 20 years most of the attention has been focused on the delivery of electronic services rather than on their procurement. A reason for this may be the perception that a lot more work goes into the delivery side rather than the procurement side; an electronic resource is purchased, say, on an annual basis and then for the rest of that year the effort is concentrated on delivery. In reality, there are many factors involved in the selection of electronic resources. This journal, for example, is an obvious tool that the selector may use in the decision-making process.

That decision-making process is becoming more complex and requires an increasing range of skills. Required are what one might call the traditional librarian skills such as an assessment of the scope and quality of the content of an electronically-delivered resource. Added to this the selector needs to ascertain some in-depth details in order to make more fundamental and wide-ranging decisions. For instance, the purchase of an electronic newspaper service will have implications for the provision of its paper-based version in the near future. If an electronic newspaper subscription is used now is there a realistic option to return to a paper-based subscription? Other aspects of perhaps even greater importance are associated with technology and accessibility. It is widely accepted that the internet is a secure and mature technological infrastructure on which to carry or distribute electronic resources. Also, it is free. Publishers these days do not need to create and develop their own distribution method or system, they simply use the worldwide web. The equivalent in electronic terms of the cover of their reference book manifests itself in a series of web pages. The content within the covers is essentially a database-driven web presence that allows access to huge amounts of information in variety of arrangements interchangeable at the click of a mouse. Most crucially, this content is made searchable and retrievable in a way that printed resources simply are not.

The technological aspects give rise to issues of accessibility, which in turn are incorporated into pricing structures. In the old world when a library purchased a print format trade directory the publisher had no control, or indeed interest, in how many users accessed this material or where they accessed it from. In the electronic world this is very different; the access system or protocol that the publisher stipulates needs to be fully understood and accepted by the user. These access systems can include individual password protected access, institutional level access based on IP address or remote access based on library membership or pay-as-you-go systems.

Recently, there has been some attention paid to the rationale behind the pricing of electronic resources, in particular the pricing structures which tend to vary considerably between publishers and vendors. Closely related to this is the activity carried out by purchasing consortia whose aim is to provide a negotiation forum. While these debates carry on we move closer to a standardized method of selection and distribution. So when we were told 20 years ago to prepare for that paradigm shift little did we understand how it might evolve into an end game such as this. Of course the clever ones among us did realize that the pricing of these resources was ultimately the main issue.

Rónán O’BeirneInternet Editor, Reference Reviews and Principal Libraries Officer Information, Bradford Libraries, Archives and Information, Bradford, UK